The Cruelty of Astrology

Imagine you're at a really nice restaurant with an amazing menu. So many choices, so much yummy food available. You're out celebrating your birthday, so you decide to order entrees, main meal and dessert. After all, it's the one day of the year when it's about you, not the kids, or spouse, or friends, just you. The waiter arrives and asks for your order. So you give your order, eagerly expecting the yummy food in due course.

Except that ... the waiter inquires as to your birthday. You tell him, then he informs you, "sorry, but you can only order from (pointing) that section, which is 1/12 of the available menu." Whaaat, no way", you say, "but I don't like the food in (pointing) that section".... well that's astrology for you. You can only have 1/12 of the available menu of abilities, characteristics and strengths available to all.

Consider some stuff

I often hear of, or run across people who espouse all sorts of ... well, quite frankly, incoherent, contradictory ideas and beliefs.

Here's a few ideas that might reset standard thinking.

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Consider some "stuff" of which the entirety of existence is composed. Not physical, not even necessarily spiritual. Let's just call it "stuff".1

Now, this "stuff" is, by definition, literally everywhere, in everything, everyone one, every thought, God, Evil ... it's literally everywhere. In fact there is no place it is not. Given its ubiquity, we can say it is "one-stuff"2.

If we want to believe that some spiritual beings or others are not composed of this one-stuff, we need ask of what they are made. Whatever that is, it will ultimately need to be made of said "one-stuff" in that said one-stuff is the ground stuff of all existence. No exceptions.

Now it gets interesting.

Creativity, Competition and Depression

Recently I had cause to reflect on the nature of competition (in this case for a Trademarked name I have).

By its nature, competition reduces everyone to winners or losers with the winners having to 'take' from the losers. It's about dividing the pie more unevenly, whereas creativity and innovation only ADDS to the mix and expands the pie.

The Adult Faith of Letting go

Adult Faith

Picked up an interesting book at a friend's place -- Diarmuid O'Murchu's "Adult Faith: Growing in Wisdom and Understanding"1

Diarmuid speaks of needing to engage paradox and the many related implications:

First comes paradox! ... A paradox does not make sense to our rational minds. A paradox captivates a surplus of meaning that cannot be contained with the structure of rational discourse. For an adult spirituality of our time this is a crucial issue. Adults today are rarely satisfied with compelling rational explanations; there is a "surplus of meaning" that transcends rationality, yet to mature adults it feels essential in our search for deeper meaning. The ability to embrace paradox is central to this sense of maturity.

But what most impressed me2 was his explanation of the art of 'letting go' -- as covered in a previous post, I've found greater peace of mind by doing so in more substantial ways:

Want different answers?

Do you genuinely seek answers to the deeper questions and problems of life?

The Belief Doctor Then you'll find some different and arguably deeper, and more congruent perspectives at this site. Hopefully they'll be of value to you. The ideas provided are based on timeless truths, and are (at least in my experience) able to be applied in all areas of life. Enjoy. Stephen Pirie The Belief Doctor

Don’t compete, CREATE!

As a small business owner, you've probably heard about the growing need for creativity and innovation. Let's put things in perspective. Firstly, we know that franchised businesses are generally more profitable and successful. We've heard the rule-of-thumb regarding the 80/20 rule. 80% of small businesses go out of business in the first 5 years, while the reverse is true of franchises - 80% of franchises are not only still in business, but thrivingE-myth.

So what do franchises get right? Good systems, and strong marketing. Do you need to be a franchise in order to have good systems? No, there's good-value help available from companies such as "Brain in a box" who focus on providing robust, effective systems for small businesses.

At the very least, reading and applying Michael Gerber's E-Myth material (on systemising the business) is invaluable to your future business success. But having good systems is only half the story - creativity, innovation or being imaginative is highly important to small businesses, and increasingly so. Research confirms that Einstein was right all along.

Imagination really is more important and profitable than knowledge. Experience, and what you know about your market, together with good systems is helpful, but new data reveals that entrepreneurial startups are the real engine of economies: